The Syrophoenician Woman
In the region of Tyre and Sidon, a Greek woman - a Syrophoenician by birth - begged Jesus to cast a demon out of her young daughter. What followed is one of the most startling exchanges in the Gospels: Jesus answered that the children must first be fed, and that it was not right to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs. Rather than take offense, she turned the image into her plea: 'Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs.' Jesus, who in Matthew's account marveled 'O woman, great is thy faith,' healed her daughter from a distance that very hour. A pagan outsider had grasped what Israel's teachers missed - that the Messiah's table held bread enough for the world, and that even its crumbs could heal. Her wit-sharpened persistence made her a lasting emblem of faith that will not be turned away.
Biography
- Children
- a daughter, delivered from an unclean spirit
- Era
- New Testament
- Nationality
- Syrophoenician (Greek)
- Also Known As
- The Canaanite woman (Matthew's account)
Family
Did You Know?
She is the only person in Mark's Gospel who ever 'won' an exchange of words with Jesus - and he granted the healing explicitly 'for this saying.'
Jesus's word for 'dogs' is the diminutive form - house puppies under the table, not street scavengers - which is precisely the opening her reply seized.
Her daughter was healed at a distance, without Jesus ever seeing her - one of only a few remote healings in the Gospels.
Key Chapters
Key Passages
Crumbs from the Children's Table
Mark 7:25-30
She answers a hard saying with harder faith - accepting the humble place yet claiming the crumbs - and goes home to find the demon gone.
25or a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet:
"Great Is Thy Faith"
Matthew 15:25-28
Jesus publicly crowns a Gentile woman's faith with praise he gave almost no one in Israel - the coming mission to the nations in miniature.
25hen came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.